A Grandfather's Regret
by sky blue star
Summary: What the grandfather might have been thinking, while those children were imprisoned in that godforsaken attic.


_Disclaimer: The characters herein are copyrighted to V.C. Andrews and Simon & Schuster Inc. _

_Suggested Listening: Cold by Crossfade_

* * *

It's winter. I know it is. I may have been trapped in this bed, in this **body** for years, but I can hear the snow tap against the window. I can feel it's cold grip across Foxworth Hall. 

Olivia, dressed in one of her warmer garments, helps fold the blankets around my form. She doesn't look at me. She just goes about the task at hand, undistracted. I guess that's why I married her. We haven't been the most loving couple, but I've always admired her determination in certain situations. That, and her mind when it comes my financial matters.

We both look up as we hear footsteps coming from up above, perhaps even from the attic. Olivia shakes her head. "Sinners. Devil's spawn." she says under her breath. She finishes folding my covers, then leaves the room.

Corrine's children are making more noise than expected. Thankfully, the staff hasn't really heard them these couple of years. Olivia is the only one in the house that has any real contact with them, if one can call only bringing meals once a day on a fancy cart 'contact'. I never say it out loud, but there are times I long to see just a glimpse of the children.

I sigh. '_It's my fault.'_ I think to myself. My fault that those four souls are now forced to live in those two rooms. I've had plenty of time to ponder it since being confined to this bed.

I was the one who stalked Alicia, both before and after my father's death. Again and again she refused me. Then one night, I had enough. I raped her, and constantly attacked her for a month. I hardly remember the incidents now, only that I had called her by Corrine, my mother's name. She became too weak to fight me, and we eventually discovered she became pregnant. It was Olivia's idea to lock her away during her pregnancy, and it was she who arranged all the details afterward, though we hadn't expected Alicia to run off with her first child in the middle of the night.

I remember the first time I held Corrine in my arms. She was the most beautiful child. Even time has failed to take away her good looks. I always spoiled her, more than I did my sons. After Malcolm and Joel died in separate accidents, she became my entire world, and there was nothing I wouldn't give her.

And then Christopher reentered our lives. I had agreed to take him in. We had always thought of my young half brother as one of our own, and Olivia convinced me I owed Alicia to at least grant her last dying wish to help put him through medical school after what I had made her endure.

If only we had known how close Christopher and Corrine had become. If only we had stopped it before it was too late. Looking back, I should have controlled my temper. Then they wouldn't have run off and gotten married, and I wouldn't be stuck in the state I'm in.

Corrine should have been told the circumstances around her birth. She would have hated me if she knew the truth. But if she had known then, perhaps her children be spared the life they are forced to live now.

There are times when I am disappointed in her. I know most of her time is spent on shopping sprees, on her young husband, Bart Winslow. Olivia tells me the visits with her children have been less frequent.

Does she know? Does she suspect? Has Olivia told her of her true relationship with the man she believed to be her half-uncle? Does she know Christopher was her half-_brother_ instead? I want to ask, but I know my heart cannot take the answers.

Another noise is heard. The faint sound of an old phonograph. It's playing the music from the ballet, _Swan Lake_. I remember Olivia told me that the older girl, Catherine, is very interested in ballet. And I know Corrine had bought her outfits and shoes to practice in. The older boy wants to be a doctor, like his father had aspired to be. All the children have found ways to keep themselves occupied.

Olivia and I both understand the world must never know of their existence. The Foxworth name must be free of this sort of scandal. We will lose our standing in society if they learn of those children who were born of the ugliest sin. Still…I realize that is no life for four young lives. If only there were some other way, but Olivia and John are convinced otherwise. So all I can do is lay in my bed, and think of it all.

It was not only the sins of their parents, that caused these children to be imprisoned here.

It was also my own.

* * *


End file.
